(Sandler and Travis)
Two U.S. textile manufacturers' groups last week said that new trade figures show a surge in textile and apparel imports from China in 2004 that was a major contributor
to the increasing U.S. trade deficit with that country. The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) said the data released by the Census Bureau on February 10 show that "China
staged the biggest increase in textile and apparel imports in U.S. history by dramatically expanding its exports of apparel and home furnishing products removed from quota control" in 2002. The NCTO
said that a 55 per cent increase in imports of Chinese apparel in quota-free categories brought China's share of the U.S. import market in these categories to a record 70 per cent, up from 10 per cent in
2001. This increase came at the expense of other U.S. trading partners, the group said; e.g., the last three years have seen market share declines for Mexico (8 per cent to 2 per cent), Caribbean and Central
American countries (10 per cent to 2 per cent), Thailand (10 per cent to 3 per cent), Bangladesh (7 per cent to 1 per cent), and Hong Kong (10 per cent to 1 per cent).
With respect to finished textile
products (e.g., luggage, curtains, blankets) that have been removed from quota control, imports from China accounted for 61 per cent of the U.S. import market in 2004, up from 13 per cent in 2001.
The
NCTO used the figures to back up its claim that China will achieve similar market dominance in the categories removed from quota restrictions last month. This threat demands that the U.S. government act
quickly to "get the safeguard process restarted and give the industry the relief it was promised as part of the China [WTO] accession agreement," the group said. The government has been prohibited
from moving forward on a number of threat-based safeguard petitions since the Court of International Trade (CIT) issued a preliminary injunction in late December.
The American Manufacturing Trade
Action Coalition (AMTAC) added that the surge in imports in 2004 spurred a 25 per cent increase in the U.S. trade deficit with China in textile and apparel goods. That deficit, which hit $17.5 billion,
accounted for nearly a quarter of the total $73.1 billion U.S. trade deficit in this sector and nearly 10 per cent of the overall U.S. trade deficit with China.
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